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Greece: the hour of truth

Date

14 Apr 2010

Sections

EU Priorities 2020

On the initiative of the ALDE group leader, Guy Verhofstadt, Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee today will hold a hearing on the subject of "The fiscal crisis in the European Union - lessons from Greece. Economic surveillance, statistics, off-balance sheet operations and sovereign debt"

.The event will be an opportunity to shed light on the conditions in which Greek public accounts were manipulated at the beginning of the decade in order to ease Greece's entry into the eurozone. More recently, the hearing should help clarify facts surrounding the speculative capital movements affecting the country which have had such a major impact on the stability of the eurozone in general.

Guy VERHOFSTADT, President of the ALDE group, has high expectations for the hearing."We are expecting the Director General of Eurostat to explain how accounts could have been legally modified and what measures were taken in the aftermath to prevent such actions. We also hope that the commissioner for economic and monetary affairs can confirm his intention to strengthen this grey area of the Stability and Growth Pact."

"We also expect some explanations from the market actors as to their actions both past and future in this area," continued Verhofstadt. "The chairman of Goldman Sachs in the US in particular should justify his bank's speculation against Greek sovereign debt and the motivation of the investment bank which did not seem to be entirely based on economic considerations. Equally Richard Metcalfe, Head of global policy of the international swaps and derivatives association could shed some useful light on derivative products and the role of alternative investment funds in the recent crisis." concluded Verhofstadt.